Picture it: Brooklyn, 1949…Long before Shady Pines retirement home and life in the Miami sun with Blanche, Rose and Dorothy. Sophia Petrillo walks the streets of Brooklyn, her new home. 

I love Peggy Olson and Khadijah James. I watched all 92 episodes of Mad Men, and laughed my way through Living Single. I also stan the girls from Broad City and have a soft spot for Sex and the City’s Steve Brady. And yet, no Brooklynite on TV ranks higher for me than Sophia Petrillo, the wise-cracking octogenarian of The Golden Girls.

After conducting an informal survey of my friends, I realized not one shared my viewpoint. This distressed me. So here I am, coming forth to make my case.

Sophia Petrillo is the best Brooklynite in TV history. 

Petrillo’s story starts like many New Yorkers: elsewhere. Born in Palermo, Sicily, she immigrated to Brooklyn with her husband, Salvatore, in her twenties. While we don’t know exactly where the Petrillos lived within the borough,  episode 16 of Season 5, entitled “Clinton Avenue Memories,” hints that their old apartment was in the Clinton Hill neighborhood.

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In many ways, Sophia embodies what we love about Brooklyn. She’s a modern thinker — supportive of people’s differences and life choices — but appreciates ancient wisdom and the well-worn (she would’ve cleaned up at Brooklyn Flea). She has a sharp tongue, as quick with a comeback as James Harden is with a rebound, and no one is spared her biting wit, especially her daughter, Dorothy. “Jealousy is a very ugly thing, Dorothy,” she says once, “and so are you in anything backless.” Brutal, yet hilarious.

Some of my favorite Sophia comments reflect her general “get on with it” attitude that many New Yorkers share. She doesn’t engage in a lot of navel gazing; she just moves forward. “People waste their time pondering whether a glass is half empty or half full,” she says. “Me, I just drink whatever’s in the glass.” Amen!

Sophia also dishes out plenty of advice (whether invited or not). I can’t be the only one who gets at least one unsolicited opinion a day while walking through my neighborhood (your dog needs a shorter leash, aren’t you cold?, the list goes on…). While the other Golden Girls often roll their eyes at Sophia’s drawn-out, manufactured stories about the old days in Sicily, there is always a lesson embedded in her tall tales. Nothing embodies her wisdom more than this choice comment: “No matter how bad things get, remember these sage words: You’re old, you sag, get over it.” Who can argue with that? 

But it’s more than just the one-liners and the pulled punches and the spot-on delivery that makes me love Sophia so much. It’s that she knows what she wants and articulates it; she isn’t afraid to be defiantly herself. I think we could all be a little bit more like Sophia or, better yet, a little more ourselves. One day, I’ll get there. In the meantime, I’ll re-watch the show again and again, laughing (sometimes crying) throughout.Maybe there will never be a consensus on this. Maybe I’m alone here, and shouting into the abyss. But I hope there’s at least one thing we can all agree on: Dan Humphrey is def the worst.